JOHANNESBURG – Ballot counting was under way yesterday after South Africans queued long into the night to vote in a watershed election, with partial results suggesting the ANC could lose its 30-year-old unchallenged majority. Counting began in each voting station shortly after polls closed, in some cities long after the planned 9:00 pm Wednesday shutdown, with long queues of voters snaking into the night.
With just over 10% of votes tallied, the ANC was leading, but with a score of 42% – well down on the 57%it won in 2019 – followed by the liberal Democratic Alliance (DA) at 26%, according to electoral authorities.
The leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) was in third place with eight percent of the vote, trailed by former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) on seven percent. The final results are not expected to be known before the weekend.
If President Cyril Ramaphosa’s party is confirmed as dropping below 50% for the first time since it came to power in 1994 — in South Africa’s first democratic, post-apartheid election — it would force him to seek coalition partners if he is to be re-elected to form a new government.
That would be a historic evolution in the country’s democratic journey, which was underlined by newspaper headlines yesterday.
“SA on the cusp of shift in politics,” read the front page of daily BusinessDay.
“The people have spoken” headlined The Citizen, adding that the long queues were “reminiscent” of those that brought late liberation leader Nelson Mandela to power three decades ago.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said a last-minute rush in urban voting and high turnout were to blame for Wednesday’s late finish, and predicted the final turnout would be “well beyond” the 66% recorded in 2019.
But many voters complained at polling stations that the three-ballot system was too complex.
IEC general manager of electoral operations Granville Abrahams said “under the circumstances”, electoral authorities “could have done better”.
“But I think that, given the challenges that we had, we were able to get up to our feet very quickly by making minor adjustments,” he told local broadcaster Newzroom Afrika. – Nampa/AFP